New Home Sales Plummet 8.1% in June

iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — The number of Americans purchasing new homes took a big plunge last month.

The Commerce Department reported on Thursday that sales of newly built homes dropped by more than 8 percent in June to 406,000.

“The numbers are definitely a little disappointing. I think it’s important to keep it in perspective. Part of the drop is from an abnormally high May figure,” said Robert Denk, a senior economist with the National Association of Home Builders.

In another bit of bad news, May’s figure was also revised downward by about 12 percent.

“The decline in June is not necessarily unexpected. It’s not a disaster. The June number sort of puts us back on trend and we expect these numbers to definitely firm up in the second half of the year,” Denk said.


Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio

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